


Maiden, No Longer

by wilyasha



Series: King and Queen of the Underworld [4]
Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: F/M, Gen, Mild Gore, Obsession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-26
Updated: 2013-10-26
Packaged: 2017-12-30 12:27:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1018604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wilyasha/pseuds/wilyasha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Persephone burns two gardens when he denies her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maiden, No Longer

**Author's Note:**

> [EDITED: 10/05/16]

Persephone feels it on the stagnant breeze, the tides of war lapping at the banks of the Styx. She does not know whether or not the vicious Titans will be unleashed or the sweet mortals will battle. She can feel the change and it stills her heart, freezing the pumping organ until it arrests violently. 

She hears loyal mortals cheer her name, begging for her to return to the land of the living. Persephone sees her husband lurking behind walls, hovering in doorways. He is a dragon, born to guard her in his land of lavish jewels. Yet she searches and the only jewel she sees is her reflection. 

"Persephone, come to bed, my love," Hades calls, shrouded in shadows, padding silently through his halls. 

The wife clenches her jaw, her teeth grinding and muscles flexing. Her palms are clammy, sweaty with anxiety and cold like ice. There are times when Persephone wants to suffocate her husband with the incantations Eris had been teaching her in private during her stay in Olympus. She wants to spell ivy and thorns around his slumbering body until they choke him. She wants to see the spittle flicking from his mouth until he cries for her forgiveness. 

She finds it strange that although they have been together for eons, Persephone wants to own him in the most degrading way. 

Clearing her throat, she replies, "Coming, my husband." 

Persephone walks into their chambers. Her feet scuff the floor softly. Hades sits up in the bed, hands making a steeple in his lap. 

"What troubles you, Persephone?" 

Her flaw is that he reads her well and that they've had this conversation before. He knows every move she makes as if it's a language made especially for him. And it irks her. It drives her to burn her gardens until they are blackened and charred, until all that is left is ash. Her husband, the king of the Underworld, the warden of Tartarus, bristles when she does not answer. "What troubles you, Persephone?" he asks again, voice starting to strain. 

"I am tired," she says, calling an incantation into her hands. She feels the magic, strong and hot in the palm of her hand. She wonders where Eris learned this fire-bringing magic. 

\--

 _Kore_ , some call her.  _Maiden_ , they whisper when they think she cannot hear. She scoffs under her breath. She is a maiden no longer. The complex situation that baffles Persephone incessantly is that although she wants to crush her husband under her feet, she also needs to love him. And  _love_ him she does. She adores her king, the one who has allowed her six months of freedom and six months of work. 

Persephone is not quite sure whether the Underworld is freedom or Olympus. 

\--

"I wish to take visitors," she says to Hades. She rushes into his private council chambers as he attends a meeting with his closest advisers. 

Hades looks up from a few scrolls, brows furrowed and only a hint of annoyance in his eyes. His gaze softens as he looks at his wife. "Persephone?"

"I wish to  _receive_ visitors," she changes her tone. "Anyone I wish," she continues, lips pursed. 

Hades smirks, darkly. It is moments like these that she realizes that her husband is not as dull as he seems. His eyes, although dead and murky, are vibrant with the vats of souls he keeps, hidden deep beneath the citadel. His lips are red and seem to drip of mortal blood. He is so very much alive. 

"And who is this visitor? A lover, perhaps?" Hades is brimming with cruelty. 

She will not back down. She's cared for him as he blubbered on their marriage bed sick with self-revulsion. She's seen him when all he does is feed on ichor, too weak to eat fruits and ambrosia. The males of the species are always the weakest. 

\--

Persephone burns two gardens when he denies her.

She twists and turns in her sleep, gasping aloud when her husband caresses her forehead as if she were just a petulant child and not his wife.

Her anger flares and she feels the pull of magic between her fingers. 

\--

As she grows lonelier, Persephone hears the Titans rattling their bonds, barking rabidly through their imprisonment. Her fingers itch to release them, or goad them on at the least. 

"You should not venture so far from the citadel, my queen," says an unfamiliar, deep voice. 

Persephone stills, clenching her fists. "I believe I know what is best for me."

"She is not a goddess, Persephone. Not fully, at least," says the voice again.

Her eyes narrow swiftly. She turns and is greeted by the dark gaze of Thanatos. Persephone swallows before speaking. "Who are you talking about?"

"Eris," he speaks plainly. "The one you want as a visitor." 

Persephone's lips part in confusion. "How did you know?" 

Thanatos smiles, and it's a crooked smile and she can see his thick, jagged teeth. 

She wants to ask him more, but her organs twist in her gut and her mouth stills. 

\--

Persephone's temper flares like the hot flames that encircle her wrists as she reduces flowers and fruit to cinders. She feeds her own cruelty with the knowledge that one day she will slit her husband's throat.


End file.
